Current Science

't Hooft argues that quantum mechanics can be understood as fully deterministic from an underlying cellular automaton model. Randomness at the quantum level is, in his view, an illusion — a consequence of hidden structure, not fundamental indeterminacy.

This connects directly to the central thesis of this research. 't Hooft and I share the same conviction: the universe is deterministic down to the deepest level. The difference is the entry point — 't Hooft works from the formalisms of quantum field theory, I start from the position of the observer. Both paths lead to the same conclusion.

Hossenfelder argues that free will does not exist in the absolute sense, and that this need not be a problem. Her argument is physicalist: the brain is a physical system that follows the laws of nature.

Hossenfelder comes close but does not draw the full consequence. She sees herself as an observer of a deterministic system — but does not name the fact that she herself is part of that same system. That is precisely the step that completes the framework.

Bohm introduces the concept of the implicate order: an underlying, undivided reality from which the visible world emerges as an explicate order. Randomness at the observable level is an illusion; the deeper structure is coherent and undivided.

Bohm's implicate order and the Radical Continuum are related concepts. Both recognise that what we perceive as separate and coincidental is embedded in a deeper coherence. Bohm calls that coherence implicate; I call it universal and processual. The core is identical.

Rovelli argues that quantum mechanical properties are not absolute but exist only in relation to an observer. There is no absolute, observer-independent reality. Physics describes relations, not objects in themselves.

Rovelli makes the observer relational but still positions them as a describer facing the system. The step I take goes further: the observer is not only relationally connected to the system, they are inseparably part of it. That is a fundamentally different starting point, even though we address the same problem.

Penrose argues that consciousness is not reducible to classical computation and that quantum processes in microtubules in neurons may play a role in the experience of consciousness.

Penrose and I agree that consciousness is not simply a byproduct of classical computation. But his direction — quantum processes in neurons as the source of consciousness — goes the wrong way in my view. Consciousness is not a separate phenomenon requiring explanation from quantum physics. It is an expression of the universal process, not an exception to it.

Penrose presents his CCC model (Conformal Cyclic Cosmology) and discusses his growing doubt about the standard Big Bang theory as the absolute origin of the universe. Recent telescope research makes it possible to look further than the supposed boundaries of the Big Bang.

This confirms a conviction I have held since childhood: the universe has no beginning in the ordinary sense of the word. Nothing can arise from nothing. Penrose arrives at the same doubt through cosmological models that I have long held through philosophical reasoning. That both paths lead to the same question mark is telling.